FCC proposes first cellphone radiation investigation in 15 years

They're going to do this until they finally find someone they can pretend died from cancer in that area and then ban all cell phones, aren't they?

If discovered to be true, Apple should be be held fully accountable.

 

Nobody else. Just Apple.

 

The bastards.

Well, the iPhone does rank pretty high on the spectrum of radiation, or so says a test done not too long ago.

Cell phone radiation tested levels published here (FWIW)

 

http://reviews.cnet.com/2719-6602_7-291-2.html?tag=

 

Not if held a certain way...

They’re investigating the FCC to find out why the FCC failed to act on a lack of evidence?

 

Then they’ll investigate why the FCC was investigated for no good reason, I suppose....

 

Eventually maybe they’ll get around to action on things that have actual evidence... like whether the recent increase in sugar (yay corn lobby!) in everything from bread to sauces promotes cancer and heart disease. (Wait, that’s already known... I won’t spoil it for you.)

 

Also, I’d like to note that people (even scientists) use the term “radiation” for two very different things:

 

1) Ionizing radiation. Atoms splitting into particles. The scary stuff from bombs and nuclear waste! Also certain e-m frequencies like X-rays. Danger!

 

2) Non-ionizing radiation. This includes everything from visible light to TV signals to microwave ovens and—yes—cell phones.

 

Cell phones are one of many sources of NON-ionizing radiation. This is not in dispute: atoms are not getting split here :)

Edited by nagromme - 6/15/12 at 8:53pm

First test in 15 years? Your tax dollars at work.

Ionizing radiation does NOT "split atoms" (fission), it knocks electrons off of atoms/molecules causing ions to form which can be damaging to biological systems

 

Light Spectrum is Radiation. I'd like to point out you don't understand that. Go take some Applied Heat Transfer Classes and you'll get it. It's the diffusion into the Earth's atmosphere that protects us from all the high frequency/high energy spectrum or we'd all have to wear space suits.

If people would spend their time worrying about things that are worth worrying about, instead of crazy shit, the world wouldn't be in such a mess.  There is no amount of evidence that will shoot down this idea, which continues to make money for authors and alarmist "journalists," that cell phones can cause cancer.  For example, all of the cell phone users in Denmark have been followed since 1985 in various studies, showing there is no correlation.  In fact some studies have found that cell phone users are less likely to get brain tumors!

 

But the real reason this is crazy is because we know a lot about electromagnetic radiation, and there is no plausible physical mechanism: radio frequency photons are not energetic enough to break chemical bonds, which is necessary to cause cancer.  A strong enough signal could cause heat damage, but the power levels are much too low for this to be a problem.  Sunlight is known to cause cancer, but only the ultraviolet photons are energetic enough, and they are a million times more energetic than cell phone photons!

It's probably not a great idea to talk on a cell phone all day with the thing pressed against your ear. But let's keep some perspective. I'm more worried about the girl who's texting while driving, putting us all in grave danger.

Every time I use a cell phone for a longer period of time, I get a headache. Have been using all kinds of cell phones since the mid 90s. Since the headache goes away soon after a call is finished, "there's nothing to worry about", the experts and economically conscious authorities say. They also say my observations have no (scientific) value whatsoever since I'm not a proper expert. "Maybe it's just tension neck or something similar? Maybe I'm just imagining things, and subconsciously "hate" the cell phone as a symbol of stress.."

 

The iPhone gives the mildest headaches of all the many phones I've tested ;)

 

Still, these things are worth looking into.

Let's not forget liver disease and obesity! The fact that we've gotten fatter during that same time? No correlation! Pure coincidence!

We here at Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc, Inc. have concluded that cellphone use causes aging.

Using sciency sounding techniques we have determined this phenomena is a real threat. We have pictures of people with cellphones over several years and you can see a progression of them aging.

It's not just those with cellphones that are aging but those around cellphones, like babies and children. Not only does this secondhand cellphone exposure seem just as dangerous but perhaps more so because they haven't built up a tolerance. You can see this in the considerably faster rate of growth of children v. adults.
Edited by SolipsismX - 6/16/12 at 6:03am

Nagromme said "Non-ionizing radiation. This includes everything from visible light to TV signals to microwave ovens and—yes—cell phones." He was clearly pointing out that light is radiation.

So what did he say that was wrong? If you think he's wrong, then you're the one who needs classes. In fact, your last sentence suggests pretty strongly that you are very confused.


I think you're onto something. My related research shows that it also causes obesity, diabetes, divorce, and the birth of ugly kids.

 

Apparently the FCC doesn't already know this!

Do you think holding a device with a transmitter up against the side of your head everyday for a fair amount of time could possibly has long term affects on that area? I think so. Remember the mobile phone industry is worth BILLION of dollars with huge investments in R&D, advertising, production, and infrastructure. Do not think it is possible that this industry really isn't looking for any answers that would either destroy it or make it start all over from scratch. Cell phones may be the tobacco of the 21st century.

What Nagrome said is correct, as is what you just said.  Ionizing radiation COMES FROM emission of particles from atoms through radioactive decay, and causes ionization.

 

C

A lot seem eager to dismiss out of hand the possibility that cell phone radiation could be harmful. But, there are a lot of things that we know today that the possibility of them being true was dismissed out of hand or even unimaginable. Not investigating and pretending we understand everything about it is simply wallowing in ignorance.

I don't think it's being dismissed out of hand. The fact is that there have been extensive studies which show no correlation.

That doesn't mean that we shouldn't do additional research to find out if new evidence shows a risk, but it does mean that there should be no presumption of harm (such as kerryb's post above).

 

kerryb makes a valid point. (Although, he may perhaps go too far.) Industry has a vested interest in not finding a danger, and history has shown that when such is the case, industry will suppress or ignore evidence to the contrary.

Edited by anonymouse - 6/16/12 at 7:30am

The point isn't valid.

FCC has investigated in the past. Dozens of academics have investigated. There is no existing evidence that it's dangerous.

That doesn't mean that there won't be evidence in the future, but accusing the industry of a coverup on the basis of unfounded belief in danger is wrong. It falls under the category of 'argument from ignorance' or 'we can't PROVE that it's absolutely 100% safe under all circumstances, so therefore it must be dangerous.'

 

 

I'm not trying to be snarky or mean spirited here so please keep that in mind but…  Your post makes the same points the tobacco industry made when word first came out that cigarettes cause cancer.

If you believe in evolution you believe that our bodies have developed to accordance with the environment, mass EMF radiation from cell phones, WiFi, and the numerous sources mostly introduced in the last few decades are new to mankind's environment. It should therefore be no surprise that there are adverse effects however quantifying them amidst the other environmental things that affect us is extremely difficult. When I first started using a cell phone in 1986 it was already known that there were health problems. One cited by a cell phone salesman, a customer of my business, was cancer of the eye, a navy radio officer also confirmed known health problems. Outside the US there have been many studies indicating problems all of which are from outside of the industry. Studies sponsored by the industry show no ill effects, three times as many studies are sponsored by the industry. Inevitably there will be some effect, everyone should make their own decision which they do of course but it would be better to have good information on which to base decisions. The media can not really be trusted especially as it is dependent on advertising revenues.

First, your analogy is absolutely wrong. There was mountains of evidence that cigarettes were harmful at the time the cigarette companies were denying risk. If you want to accuse them of hiding things, it's a reasonable accusation. The best evidence today says that cell phones are NOT harmful, so accusing telcos and phone manufacturers of fraud is misguided. Furthermore, whether or not that's true (and it's not), it's irrelevant.

Logic has its own rules and assuming that it's harmful contains a number of logical errors (Argument from Ignorance and Naturalistic Error for starters). The fact is that the prevailing existing evidence is that there is no known harm. So we should not be starting from the perspective of assuming it's harmful.

We should absolutely investigate further, but the investigation should be simply "is there any significant danger" rather than expecting to prove that there's no danger.

Although others have chimed in about the physics of radiation in response to your statement, I would like to point out that all forms of radiation pose a potential risk of cell damage, which is the main concern. Everyone is familiar with the evidence that over exposure to the sun can lead to skin cancer. Radiation damage can be subtle and it's consequences may not manifest themselves for many years. Your point that no atoms are being split appears to be said jokingly in that people's heads are not exploding. however, it is possible that some DNA is being damaged which can lead to cancer. It is probably advisable to use a remote mic and earphone rather than holding the phone to your head, just makes sense.

Ionic radiation is compounding and non-ionic radiation is non-compounding.  If you get a "sun-burn" today and another one next summer, those two burns compound and greatly increase your chances for melanoma.  RF radiation is nonionic and non-compounding so it doesn't matter how many times you get hit.  

 

A good example is police officers:  they use low power cell phones, portable radios blasting 4-5 watts directly into their body, 50-100 watt mobile radios operating directly above them and 20-30 GHz radar radiating to their front and rear all while inside their squad cars.  If non-compounding RF radiation was dangerous, police officers should have cancer after their first year on patrol.

 

 

 

Above is what the article says, and the headline indicates this is the first study (by the FCC, it appears) in 15 years. Fifteen years ago was 1997 at a time where something caused by long-term exposure was too new and too narrowly deployed for a study to have useful data. So, "investigations in the past" aren't necessarily good enough. At present, wireless handsets have been widely deployed for a number of years, so it's worth taking another look, based on epidemiological data, to look for correlations, and, after that, perhaps more thorough studies may be in order. Independent studies. This is how knowledge and science progress; not by declaring that we know everything and putting our heads in the sand as you are suggesting.

 

But, industry studies are essentially worthless, and have historically proven to be so, as there is simply too much bias and vested interest to get results that can be trusted. It doesn't even matter whether there is a conscious decision to "cover up" bad results, industry results have simply been shown, historically, to be too deeply affected by bias to be reliable.

I didn't say that the 15 year old studies were 'good enough'. I specifically said that it's worth doing newer studies.

But you can't simply dismiss the older studies because they're old. Furthermore, please stop presenting false information. The earlier studies were not all done by industry. Some were done by the FCC and many were done by academics.

The fact is that the subject has been independently studied. There is currently no evidence that cell phones cause any harm. So your suggestion that we should start out by assuming that they do cause harm is invalid.

 

I didn't dismiss the older studies because they were old, I dismissed them because cell phone use was too new, and 15 years makes a huge difference in the available data and the ability to spot long-term effects. The article itself specifically contradicts your last sentence, as quoted above by me in my previous post.

This article should have never been posted because the whole thing is motivated by politics. I wish we had better choices, but one thing is clear the current ones have to go. Nothing they do is based on sound science so it is pretty clear where this investigation will go.

Let's put it this way, if there was a real issue here sound evidence would have been found by now. There are just too many people constantly researching this and all they come up with is fuzzy warnings to apparently make people nervous.

On top of that any test involving people is just bogus. The problem here is that we are constantly surrounded by electromagnetic radiation. All one has to do is to tune a broad band communications receiver or grab a spectrum analyzer to "see" the amount of RF that we are constantly being surrounded with.

As others have noted the only know way for radiation of this type to damage tissue is through heating. In this case there is no evidence that the power levels involved can actually impact any tissue near by. However it is simple to err on the side of caution simply by plugging your earplugs in.

Now with the above said the head does contain some interesting tissues that are not located elsewhere in the body. Including tissues designed to interact with electromagnetic radiation, that is your eyes. If there was an area I'd be worried about an unknown mechanism impacting tissue it would be in the eyes.

The whole problem with things like brain cancers is that the desiase can be pretty horrible. People die slowly often loosing themselves before hand, it is ugly to watch and probably worst to experience as a loved one. These emotions result in people looking for places to lay blame and anger, often irrationally. So while I'm not bothered by research, I'm bothered by who and what might be motivating this.

Show us a testable mechanism by which this can happen.

By the way I know enough about RF safety practices to say that RF energy can be e trembly dangerous at the right power levels. However we are talking orders of magnitude differences here.

Beyond that anybody holding a cell phone up next to their head for a good portion of the day is an idiot.
The problem with this is that we have had over the years a bunch of fringe groups and even a government or two, funding studies that show no danger at all. it isn't like there haven't been attempts to prove dangers.

As to brain rumors, do realize they can be detected and operated on sooner than ever now. Sometime back in the fifties my fathers first wife died of a brain tumor as did many others because the technology simply wasn't there to catch and recover. Obviously there was nothing in the way of cell phones back then and more so far fewer RF sources.

We live in a far different world these days but yet we are in many ways just out of the stone age. If there is a real issue statistics and other research has yet to find it.

This subject has been researched constantly by organizations and governments around the world and nothing substantial has been found. Zip, nada nothing.

As I said above I'm not against research, what bothers me is who is motivating this. Because of the ugliness of the disease there is a strong motivation to find or place blame. This leads to ethical problems especially when the current administration has demonstrated a lack of ethics.

His point is garbage because industry isn't making the studies. Often this is government sponsored or flake sponsored research that is coming up with no evidence. Beyond that there is much known about the health implications of electromagnetic radiation in the frequency bands discussed. Safety comes down to the powers involved, power as in wattage.

Edited by wizard69 - 6/16/12 at 1:31pm

This is a ridiculous statement. Terrific research is done in 'industries' all the time. Many company research teams have won Nobel science/medicine prizes. Large amounts of life-changing innovations have come from companies in the 20th century (including mobile telephony).

Moreover, any halfway smart company knows that is suicidal, from a profit maximization standpoint, to fudge this kind of analysis when large numbers of independent researchers across the globe can replicate their methods and analysis. Self-interest is entirely consistent with good research.

Let me offer a rebuttal in the form of an example: Microwave is considered to be a non-ionising radiation. Depending on the intensity of the radiation, it can cause death. If you want to verify that for yourself, put your Mom's cat in the microwave and cook on high for a couple minutes.

Your comments demonstrate what is wrong with America these days. If there is something out there that can't be seen but might harm you it must be outlawed. Not because it has or or will cause harm but rather that it might for on sensitive individual out of billions. It is the same irrational fear of nuclear power plants and other invisibles that is frankly out of hand. One can look at Japan and realize that not one person has died yet from the nuclear plant failures there yet still we have this outlandish fear of nuclear power systems.

Now we have another invisible that people can fret over "cell phone radiation", even though we are using the word radiation in a different context here. Note that cell phone radiation is just another form of RF radiation which has well know health issues in the right context. There has never been any purposeful hiding of information here.
RF energy has been in use for a hundred years now, well close to it. The industry and government do know when it becomes a health problem and have known for some time. Right now they simply don't have any evidence to support the idea that the RF energy in a cell phone is a problem. Actually such research is worthless. The problem is this, you are bombarded with RF energy everyday in more forms than ever in the past. It would be impossible to isolate out cell phones as a cause with a reasonable confidence level. Beyond that you have people that have worked at TV and radio stations all their lives exposed to RF radiation and we have yet to see brain rumors as a health factor. Not too that demand for cell channels is so high that some of the TV spectrum has been give over to the cell companies. Have you completely missed the message here? Independent and government sponsored studies around the world have found nothing. Are you off your rocker here? This subject has been studied almost continuously since cell phones emerged around the world. Further studies are still going on, nothing credible has been found. Your point of view here is worthless. Seriously. Seriously dude you have to look at what motivates this new research. The people looking to blame cell phones for every misfortune in their lives have serious issues. If you want to side with those folks you will have far less credibility around here because of it. Is the wife that looses a husband to brain cancer any more credible when she picks cell phones out of the blame hat and then goes on a crusade to band cell phones? The real fact of the matter hear is that these people have nothing to go on and are just grasping at straws to cope.

I will say it again, is RF energy dangerous? Yes in the right context it is very dangerous. No body is, nor has hidden such information from the public. In the context of a cell phone there has been no indication that the power levels involved can cause health issues.

As to brain tumors our ability to find them has increased rapidly as new technology has evolved. That does not mean there has been an increase in brain rumors over the years. However I would like to know what people blamed brain rumors on before cell phones.